At the Refinery

There is really nothing like the sensation of editing a story you hope to publish. No matter how much distance you've put between yourself and the story, there is some connection to it—or if this is unique to me, I can't imagine what the alternative feels like. There are the exultant sections of the story, where spark of magic managed to get past your own deep need to abuse your vocabulary, and there are the parts where you can't help but shake your head and say to yourself "You really thought you were clever there, didn't you?"

But riding underneath all of that is the knowledge that your changes are, in a larger world sense, both permanent and unnoticed. No-one will see the minor character you edited out. No-one will know about the cute running gag with the toilet paper. That old version of the story might have been excruciating and unreadable, but it is the original; and the parts that disappear are gone forever, and no-one knows they were there. They go down the tubes into the junkyard of stories, and if they're very luck, stored for some future use.

This used to pain me—you know, during that ugly hotshot phase where I was convinced of my destined place among the Literary Elite (which to be fair still rears its head now and then). But now, I kind of enjoy it. I have private stories, private versions, little secrets between the sentences. I have stories that are all for me, things that don't have to be amazing, that don't have to be good, that don't have to hook an audience or carry a narrative; all they have to do is interest me.

I like keeping those unedited little dreams. I think some day they might help keep me sane.